This paper will examine the emergence and transformation of the notion of refugee in Syrian-Arab nationalist thought and Syrian collective memory between 1915 and 1939. There is almost no critical scholarly study about the early encounters between the Armenian, Syriac, Kurdish, Assyrian and several other refugees in Syria and the local Syrian during WW1 and the French mandate. Both in the official ideology and communal(ist) histories, the complex history of refugees in Syria is simplified by white-cleaning their history of improper conflictual aspect. As the early dissidence is excluded, so is the controversial process of integration of the newcomers in the host society has also become an unaddressed issue. One of the aims of this presentation is to demystify the state-sponsored discourse of communal harmony, tolerance and smoothness regarding the relations between the refugees and the Syrians, and display the actual situation on the ground with regards to the French mandatory politics of difference, socioeconomic situation in French-Syria and Arab nationalist thought. The image of refugee has greatly diversified and changed in the controversial Franco-Syrian treaty years in Syria (1936-39). The notion of refugee came to be contested by rivalling political groups in French-Syria. Different understandings of belonging and political loyalty to the nation came to be defined through this notion. This period witnessed the emergence of the good refugee vs. bad refugee discourse where the presence or the absence oppositionary political action forms the main line of distinction. The second part of this presentation will prove these arguments by giving examples from 1930s Syrian newspapers. It will also demonstrate how the image of refugee in the late 1930s has been transferred to the Syrian-Kurds in the Ba'th period.